Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I will carry, now, a hollowed bone in which to hold this newly blazing heart, in the form of a live ember, and mind, for as long as I live, that is never extinguished; I will do whatever it takes to protect it from the howling winds and driving rain.

This bone will hang from my body through every moment, it's constant tugging a reminder of what must be done and for what.

For if it is forgotten, discarded or allowed to diminish into dust amidst every other smoking pile of the past, all has been for nothing, and as such will continue to be forever. Without this persitent light there is only perpetual darkness.

Interview with travelling cyclist, David Toro of the University Without Borders at the People's Congress in Cali, Colombia. "The bicycle must become an instrument of resistence against modes of capitalist development".With Karolina Caicedo Flórez

Monday, October 24, 2011

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Since I've been in Bogotá, Colombia has been in tumult, thousands spilling out of the lecture halls and campuses of the universities against "Ley 30"; effectively the privatisation of Colombia's public universities. The object of such a move being, as is the nature of privatisation, profit, meaning that quality education takes a back seat to this profit. Furthermore it limits access to education by those who can least afford to pay the criminally high fees, therefore widening and institutionalising the huge class gap that already exists here in Colombia.

Since last week staff from the National University have been on strike against the impending changes and on Thursday last week university students and staff mobilised all around the nation. Here's just one of the huge demonstrations in Bogota against Law 30, one that did not become particularly violent. Unfortunately this has been an exception to the rule, Colombian police are particularly nasty. A medical student in Cali was killed by a mis-aimed (or perhaps well-aimed?) tear gas bomb, around three weeks ago.